After being basically stuck at home for a couple of weeks due to extremely cold weather I finally got to work on my Cook the Cookbook Project again this week.
So this week I decided to cook one of the winter menus from the Seasonal Specials chapter. I did get very lucky because I had already decided I was going to do one of the winter recipes, both are roast based, and it just happened that pork loin roasts were on sale at my grocery store when I could finally venture down there to get some supplies. I was lucky enough to pick up one big enough to divide so I have another roast in my freezer for later too. I really love roasts of all types and pork is one of my favorites.
So I would definitely call this menu a “Sunday Supper” since that would have been the day of the week my mom would have cooked something similar.
Roasts of all kinds were on our table often when I was growing up and I loved them then almost as much as now.
One thing about his menu I can say was it was labor intensive for sure. I actually ended up having to run my dishwasher 3 times the day I made this. I normally can get by with just once a day and on the rare occasions I run it twice its usually not packed. This day it was packed all three times!
So let’s talk about the menu items and what I thought about them.
Like I said already the star of the show this week was a pork roast. And although the seasonings were very basic (just salt and pepper) it was marvelous. I am looking forward to using all the leftovers in the weeks to come. I do need to get busy and get some of them into the freezer so I can use them for a while.
The same browned potatoes that were on the menu a while back made a repeat appearance. I do love them and my mom made them a lot when I was a kid.
This week the menu called for making a gravy from the drippings from the roast.
As a vegetable the menu called for a simple buttered cauliflower. I know a lot of people don’t care for cauliflower but I have always loved it although I normally eat it raw the last few years. I really need to think to cook it more often. The cookbook just called for adding some butter, salt, and pepper to it.
Of course there was a bread on the menu, this time a batch of batter buns. Now this is possibly only the second time I have ever made batter buns. I am not a huge fan of the texture of them so I rarely make them. At least they are relatively quick as yeast rolls go.
The item on the menu that I was most curious about was the salad dressing this week. On the menu it says “lettuce with Lorenzo Dressing” I was not familiar with this dressing so I was intrigued. It is pretty simple, you make a basic oil & vinegar dressing and add some chili sauce to it. I have to admit it was not my favorite part of the menu but it wasn’t bad. I think I am going to use some of it mixed with mayo to make a fry dipping sauce. I that will be excellent. It was really fun to run into a recipe I had never heard of before though.
For dessert the menu calls for applesauce and Chocolate Cream Drops. This was a cookie recipe I know I had never made before. I was surprised though at how familiar how they taste. I thinking that my mom must have made them from time to time. They were a fairly basic chocolate drop cookie with a chocolate frosting on them. They did contain sour cream as one of the ingredients and this is a bit different giving both a tangy flavor and an interesting texture. They were supposed to have nuts in them and I thought that I had some in the cabinet but when I went to get them to make the cookies there weren’t any. So whatever. They were still good cookies.
So what did I think of the menu this week? I have to say it’s one of my favorites so far. It did conjure up memories of all the roast dinners we ate while I was growing up. And the basics of meat and potatoes with bread almost always on the plate does take me back to childhood.
Other that the fact that I normally don’t do bread with dinner as often as in the menus in the book the thing that really stood out this week was the cooking time for the pork roast. They really did cook meat, especially pork a lot longer back in the day.
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